Coney Island Adieu With Tattoos, Tattoos

By DOUGLAS MARTIN

Published: September 25, 1995

The boardwalk shook last night as swarms of bikers on Harley-Davidsons thundered to Coney Island U.S.A. They had come to the 10th annual Coney Island Tattoo Show.

But this show, a salute to tattooed women, had a special poignancy. It was the last event on the boardwalk for Coney Island U.S.A., the nonprofit organization that has run a museum, a freak show and weekly avant-garde concerts there since 1985. After years of financial turmoil and threats of eviction, it is leaving its barnlike former bathhouse at the boardwalk and West 12th Street and taking with it a fabled remnant of the amusement park's recent past.

The barkers, the illustrated man, the snake lady and the rest of the showcased oddities will be gone. On New Year's Day, the Polar Bears will have to find somewhere else to enjoy a hot cup of soup after their ritual plunge into the icy surf.

"Someplace needs to be the center of Americano-bizarro," declared Dick D. Zigun, a playwright and impresario who started the odd enterprise in 1980 in various temporary locations until securing the current site on the boardwalk in 1985.

The flag he flew yesterday to mark his exit from the legendary wooden planks was a skull and crossbones, and the mood of the people in attendance, most attired in leather and denim, was philosophical at best.

"Progress moves in and you move out," said Coney Island Freddie, who until tattooing became illegal in New York City in 1961, was a leading tattooist in this region. "Not much you can do about it."

A man who would identify himself only as "the knish man of Coney Island" said, "It's tragedy, pure tragedy."

But Mr. Zigun said that Coney Island U.S.A. would reopen somewhere else. In a deal reached last Thursday in Brooklyn Housing Court, the landlord, Ralph Ricci, agreed to forget the $51,000 in back rent, court papers show. In return, the sideshow promised to leave no later than Nov. 30.

Coney Island U.S.A. will not be moving to Manhattan, Atlantic City or Miami Beach, all of which it considered, Mr. Zigun said, but he would not say where he was moving for fear it might jeopardize negotiations.

The deal called for neither side to release terms or say anything that is not "amicable."

"Everybody would like to get on with their lives," Meryl Wenig, Mr. Ricci's lawyer, said.

The settlement came two weeks after the landlord's lawyer threatened to force Coney Island U.S.A. into bankruptcy. "Prior to the amicable settlement, there were some extremely difficult negotiations," said Ronald L. Kuby, the lawyer who represented the sideshow without fee.

Mr. Zigun said he was sad to leave the fabled boardwalk. "It sounds odd, but the boardwalk has become my front lawn," he said. "I'm going to miss my lawn more than the building."

Michelle Lagalla, who is 29 and sells removable tattoos for a living, said she has been covering her own back with real tattoos since she was 18. She laughed as she pulled up her sweater to show the maze of tattoos on her back, including a dragon flying around a castle.

She said she fervently hopes Coney Island U.S.A. survives. "This is the funnest place in Brooklyn," said Ms. Lagalla, who lives in the borough's Marine Park section. "Whatever comes through the world shows up here."

The show yesterday followed in a proud tradition that has included a concert featuring Sun Ra and John Cage, performances by a man called the Human Cigarette Factory, who could roll cigarettes with his tongue and toes, and plays by local writers, as well as a performance of a work about Coney Island by the Soviet dramatist Maxim Gorky. But Coney Island U.S.A. is perhaps best known for staging the Mermaid Parade, held each June to mark the summer's beginning and featuring hundreds of men and women -- many of them artists -- who dress in fish motifs.

"I'm sort of the witch doctor of Coney Island," Mr. Zigun said. "This organization has become the spirit of Coney Island for a lot of people."

Ms. Wenig would not say whether a McDonald's is moving into the sideshow's building, as has been widely suggested.

Photo: Bernie Moeller, left, and Michael Wilson showing off their tattoos at the Coney Island tattoo show last night. It was the final event for the organization that has run a freak show and museum there since 1985. (Robert Miller for The New York Times)